UMass Dartmouth renames the ATMC: the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Friday

Oct 23, 2015 at 9:33 PMOct 23, 2015 at 9:37 PM

The facility on Friday was renamed the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Kevin P. O'Connor Herald News Staff Reporter @HNKPO

FALL RIVER — There was the time the photographer walked into the ATMC with a problem, an idea and a chunk of aluminum.

A real estate photographer, he often took multiple images of a building which he then knit together on his computer to make one wide picture.

The problem was one of precision — all of the devices he mounted on his tripod left visible seams that he had to struggle to erase on his computer.

It was the kind of problem that brightens the day of the staff at the Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center, 151 Martine St., an arm of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Computer students studied the software and worked with engineering students to design a geared swivel that would produce pictures the computer could work with more easily. Engineering students worked with drafting students and then they went to work with Edward Spring, the prototype lab manager, who supervised students who cut and shaped the chunk of aluminum the photographer provided.

The photographer left the ATMC with the device, a patent application for it and a business plan built by UMass Dartmouth students.

That, said Tobias Stapleton, is the new model for the facility, which on Friday was renamed the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“We are an incubator looking for outside entrepreneurship,” Stapleton said. “We are looking to build that incubator internally.”

“This is more than a name change,” said Divina Grossman, chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, at a ceremony Friday to mark the name change. “You are going to see and feel the dynamics of this change.

“We are launching a virtual incubator. The faculty, staff and students will be given the training to be made available to start ups in the area.

“This will help us be a powerful driver of the innovation ecology of the SouthCoast.”

The ATMC was founded in 2001. It has hosted 41 companies. More than a dozen have graduated and are up and running on their own. They employ more than 100 people locally and add millions of dollars to the regional economy, university officials say.

The CIE will continue to help startups, but some of those companies will be virtual tenants, Stapleton said.

“Companies can connect with us, but they won’t have to be in the building,” he said. “They can use the conference rooms to meet with investors or faculty or students.”

The center’s labs, computers and machine shop will be available, too.

“If someone is operating out of their basement, but they need to build a prototype, they can work here with us,” Stapleton said.

The CIE will double its tenant base: It has 18 companies in the building now, working on everything from underwater drones, electric bikes and helicopters with double rotors to a lab that tests used roof shingles or broken bottles as pavement material.

And there will be more involvement with UMass students. The school awarded lab and office space to three students who won a competition for an idea they could develop and bring to market. Space will be available for students involved in projects and the intern program is being strengthened, Stapleton said.

The CIE, he added, is in a good place for the work its does. It has the support of the college and is in the center of an area that is rich in people who understand manufacturing and know how to make things and that has plenty of available mill space to let young companies develop.

“We have an incubator that is capable of supporting manufacturing, life science, marine technology,” Stapleton said. “We are the only incubator in New England that is on a body of water.

“We want to be the centerpiece for entrepreneurship for Southeastern Massachusetts.”